Google filters IPs to comply EU’s Right To Be Forgotten rules globally next week

Google has stated it will filter its contents based on users' IP addresses to better protect the privacy of those under its 'Right To Be Forgotten' ruling to comply with EU demands.

Google has stated it will comply with a key demand of the EU privacy regulators that objected to the way the search giant went about implementing its ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ program in the old continent.

As things stand right now, Google will censor its search results to ensure the details of all those who have agreed to the Right To Be Forgotten program are not accessible to any version of Google’s search site from any location where the program is in force.

The change is expected to come into effect starting next week.

Prior to this, the screening process was limited to the Google search site of the region where the applicant to the Right To Be Forgotten program was based in. This made for quite an ineffective solution as all the details were still available from the search site of a neighboring country.

For instance, anyone living in France who wishes his or her details to be removed from the Google search results applied only to the Google.fr domain. The same would always have been available to anyone using a different domain such as Google.uk or Google.de. That is set to change as per the new settlement reached so that the restricted contents will be off bound to all Google search sites, including Google.com.

Google, however, has stated they will now be filtering the search results based on the user’s IP address. What this means is that for search request originating from regions where the Right To Be Forgotten program is not applicable will still have access to unfiltered content.

As of now, Google’s Right To Be Forgotten program is prevalent only in Europe and Argentina. The company also stated it has received 386,038 requests for removal from search results since the ruling was introduced in 2014, and only about 42 percent of the requests have been approved.

The Right To Be Forgotten is seen as a means to allow those with a dubious past to live life on their own without having to worry of being stigmatized of their past deeds. This is seen as a way to allow then to live life afresh.

1 COMMENT

So let me get this straight….if I use a VPN to make my IP address appear as though I am coming from another country I could see items on a Google search that I could not if I were not using VPN. Who dreamed this up as an effective method to implement the right to be forgotten? Nothing is forgotten, it’s only walled off by something that can be bypassed with a widely available technology. Shame on you!